Perhaps an act of Mercy
by reachgracebyfalling
Summary: Dr Linda looks for Lucifer, and finds him in the aftermath of something terrible


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**Perhaps an act of Mercy**

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The penthouse is a mess.

A literal – someone crashed through the ceiling and then had emergency surgery performed on them among the debris -mess.

The couches have been pushed aside; one looking like someone had tried to karate chop it down the middle, while Maze and Amenadiel; curled up around each other, slept on the other, trapped in the sleep of the truly exhausted.

The floor is covered in glass and plaster and what looks like torn pieces of Lucifer's sheets soaked in blood. At least three of the windows are completely shattered, others have multiple cracks running from edge to edge, and the curtains have been half pulled down and almost torn to shreds.

There are holes in the walls, cracks in the marble, nearly all the books have been knocked off their shelves, and the piano is at an angle, its crash into the bar stools almost breaking one of the legs clean off.

Linda leaned down, picking up a piece of… something off the floor. It was possibly the softest thing she'd ever touched. A dark mottled grey, with a fleck of something lighter, something brighter, that seemed to shimmer as it moved. She glanced around the room again. There were bits of it everywhere, on the floor, floating in the air. Almost like…

"Lucifer?" Linda called out softly, taking a careful step, then another, away from the elevator, "Lucifer?"

She spotted him on the floor next to the piano, twisting and turning one of Maze's curved Hell blades in the hand not holding his flask, staring out at nothing.

He seemed to have noticed her in the time it took for her to tip-toe her through the mess.

"Lucifer," Linda repeated, kneeling down next to him. She'd seen the look on his face once before (_Was it really only a few weeks ago?_), "What happened?"

The knife fell to the floor as he looked around the room, seeing something else.

"One of my little sisters," His voice cracked, but he continued; trying for flippantry, and looked up at the ceiling, "You could say she _dropped_ in for a visit."

He wiped a hand over his face, leaving a bloody smear down his left cheek.

"Have you ever seen a bird with a broken wing? They flap around something terrible."

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._..._

_._

The shock, the sheer horror of what he's seeing has him frozen to the spot. Stealing all the (not quite necessary) air from his lungs.

_Dear sweet Hestia…_

His sister standing amongst what was left of the ceiling, leaving bloody footprints as she shifted. Nervously. Agitated. Wary. Frightened.

One wing hung uselessly. And the other lashed out, hitting a chair before sweeping it away. She held her angon (that blasted fire poker) in both hands, the point raised defensively and shaking in front of her. The working wing shattered another window.

"Sam-" Hestia stammers, "Lucifer?"

The bruises around her eyes are purple-green, there's blood smeared around her mouth and nose. Some of her fingers don't bend in the direction they should, and there are more bruises; new over old, around her neck, on her arms, and-

"Luce…"

The elevator _pings_; a sudden, unwelcome sound. And startled, Hestia spins around, sending the piano flying into the bar and knocking more books to the floor.

Bile rises up in throat (a sensation that is both new and unpleasant). Her hair; so much like his own, looks like someone tried to feed it through a shredder, their success marked by the number of bloodied, bald patches that mar Hestia's head. But below that…

One wing – sharp and furious.

The other, as if someone tried (and nearly succeeded) in yanking it, pulling it from his sister's back.

It drops suddenly, a tendon snapping under pressure, and Hestia makes that sound again. The one that had pulled him into the room quicker that the sound of her unexpected entrance.

Something low and sharp and hoarse; like she'd been screaming for a millennia already. Something full of pain and betrayal and loss.

A sound he'd made himself once before.

The elevator doors open, and the same horror stops their brother and Maze from taking more than a step.

"Amenadiel"

The angon drops; clattering to the floor, a heartbeat before Hestia does.

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"I had… I," Lucifer finally looks at her and Linda rocked back, trying not to drown in the anguish in his eyes, "I had to cut my sister's wings off."

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A/N This may get more chapters, maybe

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